Thursday, August 15, 2013

New York City weekend (part 2)

A most exciting event last Saturday! Our friends Ron and Jerome got married! We are so happy for you. It was a small private ceremony, but they did have a nice after party so we were able to see them for smiles and hugs and to hear some of the stories. Congratulations and much love!

In the glow of happiness, we hung out at a rooftop bar to watch the sunset with an excellent Empire view:

One part of the city we had not been yet - Little Italy. We took the subway down and wandered just a bit before happening upon the lively street full of authentic restaurants, outdoor seating, gelato, and snippets of the Italian language. Ah, memories of one of our favorite countries.

This mural seems a bit out of place there - Baby Hulk?

Sunday we had a leisurely start but eventually got ourselves to the Museum of the City of New York for an exhibit on Making Room - New Models for Housing New Yorkers. I was surprised to see the current regulations and restrictions on living quarters in the city, limiting density and one-bedroom apartments and requiring a minimum size in a place where space is at a premium.

Design projects are in the works to find innovative options on housing. From the perspective of a couple people who like to live in a travel trailer, this makes a lot of sense.

This project is apparently in the works for testing micro-unit apartments (250-370 square feet) with modular construction and various shared spaces including an attic garden, ground-floor porch, lounges, and a fitness area. I look forward to hearing how (and if) this works out in a couple years.

The museum had a walk-in demo area for small-space living - more room than an RV and a bunch of innovative features and ways to store furniture pieces when you aren't using them:

One last try at the lotteries!

Still no luck, oh well.

We spent the afternoon on the Intrepid aircraft carrier - awesome! There were many jets and helicopters on the deck to admire:

This Tall Ship was looking just a bit smaller from this perspective:

A Top Gun jet:

Our main purpose for the visit was to see the space shuttle which was sharing space on the desk, now that the area has been reopened after being damaged by the hurricane.

An amazing photo of the Enterprise being flown into the city:

There she is!

The influence of Star Trek on the name of the first shuttle - and a look at the actors a few years ago:

Discovery meets Enterprise:

We were very excited to get to see the shuttle up close:

This might make a good "what is this?" puzzle photo:

Another great image of the shuttle being transported to its new home:

The rest of the Intrepid was interesting to explore. We had never been on an aircraft carrier before, this thing is big, lots to see.

They've got coffee, good to go:

Beware of... something starting with "J"...

Asleep on the job:

I'm really not sure...

Lego model of the Intrepid - that is cool:

Huge ropes and spool - I needed to put a person in this photo to give some perspective. They look like modern art pieces to me:

Playing around with the "Meatball", the landing aid for jets on the deck of the carrier:

Checking out the lines holding this thing in place:

9-11 memorial:

A Concorde - that's pretty neat!

We stopped in for our first go at Ethiopian food - interesting, something different, that's for sure.

Then we took a ride back to Brooklyn and found an astonishingly long line to get into the bandshell area of Prospect Park. They were showing the movie "The Beasts of the Southern Wild" on big screen, with a live orchestra instead of the movie score and the director (Ben Zeitlin) I believe in the orchestra. Even the actress who played Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) made an appearance at the beginning.

We were very psyched but we weren't sure we would get in from the back of the line of possibly thousands of people. So we grabbed a spot along the road to stand behind the fence and we could see and hear just fine. Awesome. Sometimes we get so lucky in finding things like this and having the timing work out. And the movie and music was great - again!

One last NYC morning on Monday! We ran across the Queensboro Bridge, had one last bagel as Ess-A, ran back to shower and check out of the apartment, and finally made it to the Argosy bookstore to browse old books and maps.

Then we headed to Wall Street for lunch with our friend Naveen - it was great to see him!

Too much fun! We may need a few days to recover from all of that... but it was totally worth it.